After more than four decades at the helm, Hampton University President William R. Harvey announced Monday that he will step down in June 2022.

A native of Brewton, Ala., Dr. Harvey, 79, came to Hampton in 1978 when it was still called Hampton Institute and was “slowly losing ground,” the university said in a news release. But under his leadership, the institution experienced a “steady, four-decade plus climb of greatness.”

During his tenure, Hampton added 92 new academic degrees, including 12 doctoral programs; increased the endowment from $29 million to more than $300 million; put four satellites into orbit through grants and arrangements with NASA; built a weather antenna to detect hurricanes and storms up to 2,000 miles away; and opened a proton beam cancer treatment center that was one of only a handful in the nation when it opened in 2010.

The campus and student enrollment also have grown in the 43 years Dr. Harvey has been in charge, with the addition of 29 new buildings and an enrollment of more than 4,000 students. Under his watch, Hampton became a university in 1985.

“The growth and development I have witnessed under Dr. Harvey’s successful leadership have been, in a word, triumphant,” stated Wesley Coleman, a Hampton alumnus and chairman of the university’s Board of Trustees.

“The significance of this president’s legendary contributions to Hampton will be celebrated for generations,” he continued.

An astute businessman and owner for 39 years of a PepsiCo Bottling Company in Houghton, Mich., Dr. Harvey has said he runs Hampton as a business for educational purposes.

In an interview Monday with HBCU Digest, Dr. Harvey credited teamwork, and being a “tough team leader,” for getting things done at Hampton. He noted that 17 people who worked in leadership positions under him at Hampton have gone on to become presidents of other institutions.

He acknowledged in the interview that he has donated $8.6 million through the years to Hampton and been a major donor to his undergraduate alma mater, Talladega College in Alabama, which recently named its new African-American art museum in his honor.

He said he has worked in a “bipartisan way” to help boost the university, including meeting one on one in the White House Oval Office “with every president since Jimmy Carter.” Sometimes, he said, his efforts weren’t understood by others.

Still, he said, the university managed to bring in more than $45million during the tough times of the pandemic, including a $30 million gift announced in July from billionaire philanthropist and author MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Additionally, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos visited Hampton University with Vice President Mike Pence in September, when she announced a $17.7 million award to the university to establish the Virginia Workforce Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, a small business incubator at the university, to help grow the state’s economy after the pandemic.

Dr. Harvey told HBCU Digest that he initially planned to retire in June 2021, but decided to put it off until 2022 because of COVID-19 and the need for strong leadership to get the school through the pandemic.

He said he and his wife of more than 50 years, Norma Harvey, plan to build a home in Hampton and split their time between Hampton and their home in Hilton Head, S.C., when he retires.

“There are major things I still want to do before I retire,” Dr. Harvey told HBCU Digest, adding that he plans to “still be around” after retirement to continue to help Hampton and the next administration.

He said while he has a list of qualities and skill sets needed by the next president, the decision of who will replace him rests with the university’s Board of Trustees.